Tuesday December 2^nd

Wednesday December 2^nd

Introduction

Following the great success of the previous years, it is a pleasure to present to those interested in this important area of clinical medicine the 2008 Educational Master Courses of the European Society of Hypertension (ESH). The Courses are centred on a number of meetings to be held during the second half of 2008 in several European countries (mainly in Eastern Europe) with the aim to present and discuss in front of large qualified audiences the most recent progress on diagnosis and treatment of hypertension as well as on prevention of cardiovascular risk. The basis for the presentations and the discussion will be the recent guidelines on the treatment of hypertension prepared by the ESH and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) which were published in 2007 in the Journal of Hypertension and the European Heart Journal. In each meeting ESH opinion leaders will review trial and mechanistic data that have formed the basis for the Guidelines recommendations whereas national leaders will provide their feed-back and discuss how these recommendations can fit local clinical practice thus helping their implementation. National leaders will also present and discuss the current situation of their country as far cardiovascular research and prevention strategies are concerned with emphasis also on survey on control of blood pressure and cardiovascular risk factors recently performed in several eastern European countries. All Faculty members will finally discuss a number of clinical cases to exemplify theoretical concepts presented at the meeting. As last year the programme will be supported by an educational grant of Berlin Chemie / Menarini International to which goes the gratitude of ESH for allowing to implement an initiative that will, we hope, contribute to stimulate research and improve treatment of hypertension and cardiovascular prevention in Europe.

Faculty